City’s commercial sales market starts 2012 better than it did 2011

The city’s commercial sales market showed mixed results in the first three months of 2012, according to a report released today by PropertyShark.com. There were $4.98 billion worth of commercial real estate deals in New York City in the period, a 24 percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 2011 but a 52 percent gain over the same period a year ago. In each quarter between this year’s first quarter and last year’s first quarter, total commercial sales volume exceeded $6.5 billion.

Despite the drop in sales volume, overall sales activity has been steadily increasing for the last five quarters. There were 849 commercial transactions in the first quarter, three more than there were in the previous quarter and 25 percent more than the total recorded in the first quarter of 2011.

Nearly 17 percent of last quarter’s deals were worth more than $5 million, and those sales accounted for 84 percent, or $4.19 billion, of the overall volume.

Office building sales comprised 51 percent of the transaction volume in the first quarter, while multi-family sales contributed to 29 percent of the nearly $5 billion total. Eighty-three percent of the quarter’s sales, or $4.1 billion worth, occurred in Manhattan. Brooklyn had $451 million in commercial sales, good for 9 percent of the city’s total. — Adam Fusfeld